Nicaragua Day 3, a long & busy day

As we took off for our excursion to Ometepe we passed by the beach and saw this man trying to sell this huge fish.  Don't know what kind of fish this is, but it was big.  It would definitely 

make someone an awesome meal!!!

Kristi had arranged for us to have a guide for the day.  They (Kristi and the kids) have had a Spanish teacher for the past 4 weeks.  Her name is Irlanda.  She had agreed to go along with us on our excursion to Ometepe. She lives up a steep hill and so when we went by to pick her up, we had to hike up this hill to find her.

                                                      Here is Irlanda and her family.

Here is a picture of a house that has been started for Irlanda's brother's family.  There have been a lot people of who have donated towards this project and there is still money needed to finish it.  You can read about it through the link listed below:

http://www.hipmum.com/2012/08/housing-project-building-a-home-for-family-of-6/
Watch the video.  It is pretty touching.  

Here's a picture of the tin shack that they live in now.

On our way to Ometepe, we stopped in Rivas at the Central Market.  It's another very interesting, open air market.

One interesting thing about Nicaragua is that there are carts of every kind everywhere.  There are horse drawn carts, and donkey drawn carts, and bike drawn carts and we even saw some oxen pulling a cart. They are used to haul people or food items or almost anything.  There are all kinds of transportation from individual cars, buses, taxis, motorcycles, and  there are a lot of bikes.  Some of these bikes are obviously bike taxis and appear to transportation for those who are willing to pay to be taken to their destination on a bike that someone else is peddling.  The people here seem to very industrious!!

This is a picture of Ometepe.  It is an island with two volcanos on it. This is one of them.

              We had an hour long ferry ride to get to the island.

After we got to the island, we were picked up by a shuttle/van.  We had a typical ride down the Nicaraguan road.  Driving at full speed, the van swerves between other vehicles, people riding bikes, people walking, cows, horses, pigs, goats, chickens, horse drawn carts, etc.

We even saw a monkey along the way.

Our first stop after this exciting ride was at a beautiful park area.  These little elves posed for a picture for me.

As we ordered at the restaurant there, Logan decided to wade out into the lake.

Jeremy was pretty happy with his lunch when it arrived.  This huge fish looked delicious.  The kids didn't think so!!

                                   But, according to Jeremy, it was pretty delicious!!

And then we went to a natural spring where Kristi and the kids swam.  

Kristi, being the brave person she is, jumped off a platform, holding this rope and dropped into the water as she swung out over it.

Carter wanted to try it but he wasn't quite tall enough to get a good grip on the handle on the rope.

It seemed that it was time to head back on the ferry way too soon.

Here is a picture of Logan consoling Kristi as she is suffering from sea sickness.

When we got back into the car for the drive back to San Juan del Sur,
there were many more obstacles to dodge along the way.

After getting back to Palermo, everyone decided to take one more swim. 

 It was too dark to get a picture.

It was a very full day and resulted in a lot of tired people!!!